My Own Bucket List

I loved the movie, "The Bucket List." I had seen it one time previously, but it was better the second time, since I knew what was going to happen and could focus on the smaller details I missed the first time I watched it. It also allowed me to consider thoughts and conceptual things that struck me for the first time, and those insights were powerful for me.

The first epiphany was something quite simple. The very concept of a bucket list is a product of relative privilege and luxury. People who can consider a true "bucket list" (things they have reason to believe they might be able to do, as opposed to things they simply wish they could do in an ideal world) are able to do so due to some kind of privilege or luxury from their current and previous lives. Financial considerations are the best example of this disparity, since more concrete, objective goals often have an accompanying price tag, while poorer people usually are forced to focus on things that are more conceptual or subjective. In fact, many people don't have the luxury of even considering the concept of a bucket list, since all their energy must be focused on nothing more than survival. 

For example, in the movie, Edward’s list was about seeing the world, which was possible only because he was abnormally rich. It included, “Go on a safari,” “Visit Stonehenge,” “Sit on the Great Egyptian pyramids,” and “Drive a motorcycle on the Great Wall of China.” Conversely, Carter’s list was full of things like, “Kiss the most beautiful girl in the world,” “Witness something truly majestic,” “Laugh until you cry,” and “Find the joy in your life.” The differences in their buckets lists could be explained as nothing more than their individual personalities and perspectives, but it is not adequate to ignore the impact of financial success and security on those personalities and perspectives. Edward was able to record practical goals that were expensive to accomplish specifically and exclusively because he had the money to make them happen, while Carter was constrained by his limited resources to goals that were not attached in any way to financial cost and which were far more subjective.

The second thought was much more personal and enlightening. My own father would fit Carter’s character almost completely. Except for the element of race, which was a legitimate, major contributing factor for Carter, my father’s life mirrored Carter’s in nearly every way. My father gave up his professional dreams to marry my mother, then he did it again, 14 years later, to give her the support she needed to deal productively with her schizophrenia. He had eight children, specifically because my mother wanted as many kids as possible, even though he knew it would increase his responsibilities exponentially. He intentionally moved from financial security to serious poverty for his wife’s sake, and, as a result, he changed irrevocably the content of what he would have included on a bucket list.

In fact, even more fundamentally, he gave up the notion of creating a bucket list and made his own life his bucket list. He lived specifically and intentionally for his wife and children, giving up nearly all aspects of pure, undiluted individuality in the process. Watching this movie reminded me that I have come to read one particular Biblical verse differently as a result of coming to understand my father's sacrifice: “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”

This verse doesn’t say that he "die" for this friends; rather, it says that he "lay down his life" for his friends.” There is an important difference between those two phrases. Just as Jesus, of Nazareth, set aside whatever life he had created prior to the age of 30 to begin his ministry to the people of his area, my father set aside the life he envisioned, twice, to begin his own personal ministry to his wife.

I see that same example in Carter. He lived his life for his wife and family, and he lost himself in a real and practical way. Edward offered him a chance to focus on himself again, and, initially, Carter accepted that offer. Eventually, however, he realized that the life he had established was more important than a practical, tangible, measurable list of dreams – as much as he enjoyed living those dreams. Edward didn’t improve Carter’s life in any way, ultimately, except in helping him regain the joy of his former life of self-sacrifice and service.

Meanwhile, Carter literally changed Edward’s life. The things on Edward’s bucket list that matter the most in the end were the things Carter had added, especially, “Find the joy in your life.” That joy wasn’t in the grandiose, fancy, and expensive; it was in the personal, intimate, and costless gift of his daughter and granddaughter.

That is my takeaway from this movie. Bucket lists are enticing, and, for those who can afford to fulfill them, they can be enjoyable and fulfilling to a degree. However, the most meaningful bucket lists are what people live as a direct result of their normal, daily, steady lives. I have chosen a life path that probably will not afford me the temptation to create a bucket list like Edwards, even if only in theory and not actual cost, but that chosen path has given me a multitude of experiences like Carter’s bucket list. Perhaps more than anything in my life, I am grateful for that particular way in which I am my father’s son.  

We Can Be "Atoners" in This Life

We talk of an infinite Atonement, but I have seen an example of how powerful a mortal, finite Atonement can be. 

My father's sacrifice for my mother, about which I won't write again here, allowed her to have a peaceful, joyful life despite "limitations" that could have made her life hellish. In a very real way, he laid down (set aside) his potential life and picked up a new life solely for her. In more ways than one, he suffered so she wouldn't have to suffer. We (their children) were blessed in many ways as a result, but he did it because of his deep, unquenchable love for her. 

I honor the concept of divine Atonement, but I think we focus so much on a universal, transcendent Atonement that we overlook the impact we can have when we choose to be "at-one-ers" throughout our lives. 

It is easy to be a divider. Any unprincipled person can be that. It is much harder to be a dedicated uniter and accepter and valuer and uplifter and atoner. 

I try to live my life that way, and the current political situation has made that excruciatingly difficult. I hope I can return to whom I want to be - and, in my interactions with others, be more like my dad was with my mom than any other example I have had in my life.

Does God Really Direct Us Down "Wrong Roads" Sometimes?

Elder Holland gave a talk in General Conference a couple of years ago about what he learned when he and his father took a wrong road on the way home late one night. It generated a lot of discussion online about whether or not God really would direct us down wrong roads in our lives. 

My own take is that God allows us to walk "wrong roads" as part and parcel of mortality and our limited understanding (that he doesn't always stop us from walking the ones we are prone to walk), but I personally don't believe he proactively places us on or guides us to roads that truly are wrong for us. Thus, I don't believe he gives us incorrect answers to our prayers. I might be wrong, but that's how I see it. It just fits my own belief in the nature of God better.

Having said that, it makes perfect sense for someone who sees God as more of an interventionist God than I do - and it can be the only thing that would make sense for some people who thought they received answers to prayers that they followed into situations that caused pain and felt wrong to them. I also am completely open to the idea that God will do that for some people who need to learn from mistakes but won't choose them on their own - those, for example, who mare more inclined to put their head down and live a Law of Moses life, letting others tell them exactly what to so. I can see God directing them off that path in order to get them to the right one, even if that means they walk a hard road to get there.

However, I do believe that God opens doors to us at times and arranges opportunities that we can take or not take. That's how I see my own life, since I can't deny the incredible ways that the path of my life appears to be "directed" in various ways. There have been a couple of moments/periods in my life that I only understand in hindsight as what was necessary to get me to the next place my family needed to be, so, in that sense, I can understand the idea of being on a "wrong path" to get to the "right path" - even though I wouldn't phrase it that way.

I recently have come to phrase those experiences as being on the right track but the wrong train - or, perhaps more accurately, being on the only train at that particular time that would take me to the point on the track where I could catch the next "right train" for that particular time - usually with the core purpose being someone in my family or a personal connection, rather than a professional reason. In that light, I can see my life as a serious of trains connecting me to multiple tracks that made our overall destinations possible to reach - but I had to disembark from each train and climb on a new one each time to get where my family needed to be at each juncture in our life.

Pornography: My Personal Story; A Plea to Change the Conversation

I was exposed to pornography for the first time when I was a young teenager. 

It was minor, in comparison to what it could have been, but it is important to understand what happened and what I have learned from it.

I am sharing more details in this post than I have shared with anyone previously, since all of the people involved back then have passed away - and because I want my children and their children to understand why I despise three things regarding pornography: the industry itself, what it produces, and, just as importantly, how badly we have messed up our conversations regarding it within our religious culture. 

Of these three things, I am focusing most in this post on the final one: the way we converse about and deal with it in our culture. This post is an attempt to explain why, without writing the novel that would be required to address all three. It is not an attempt to be comprehensive, as I am not dedicating weeks to the task of writing this post. 

With that introductory explanation: 

My first "real job" (not delivering newspapers or doing manual labor tasks for a few dollars) was at an elementary school in the neighboring town helping the custodian over the summer. My father, a custodian at another elementary school in that town, arranged for me to get the job. For someone raised in poverty, it was a blessing.

The custodian with whom I worked was an extremely good man - a Stake President with a family he loved dearly and a rock solid, genuine testimony of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He also was a regular consumer of pornography. It wasn't visual, as far as I knew, although it might have included magazines and/or movies of which I could not have been aware. 

My first exposure occurred one day when I was ready for my break, went into his office to clock out for that break, and saw a partially covered book on his desk. I liked stock western books, especially Louis L'Amour (even though I knew they were formulaic brain candy), but I didn't know the author of the book I saw. It obviously was a western, so I picked it up and started reading it. It took only a few pages to realize it wasn't like L'Amour's books, and my curiosity (and hormones, I am sure in retrospect) got the better of me and propelled me to keep reading - that book and the others he brought to work throughout the summer. 

That custodian really was a good man, and I am convinced he would have been mortified if he had known I was reading those books - that he had been my introduction to pornography. Looking back, I am sure he was ashamed of his habit, and especially the hypocrisy of his actions and what he had to preach in his church calling. 

It has been roughly 35 years since I picked up that book, but, occasionally, when I am not thinking actively of other things, one memorable scene from the book will flash across my mind - and I will wonder, once again, at the ability of pornography to embed itself into our neurons and refuse to be deleted. Since then, I have been exposed to pornography at various times (to differing degrees, through multiple media sources), and, with me, the same issue exists across the spectrum: my physiological tendency to have images appear unbidden that I would prefer remain unseen or, ideally, deleted. 

From decades of experience, education, conversation, and introspection, I have come to a few conclusions that I feel the need to share now regarding our treatment of this issue within our religious dialogue. I will start with a few comments about our warped cultural view of all things sexual and end with a summary comment about the nature of the porn industry and its impact on society. I hope nobody reads this post as a defense of pornography or the industry that produces it. Nothing could be further from the truth.

1) Nudity is not pornographic by nature, and we fail miserably when we make that overly-simplistic and damaging connection. There is nothing - absolutely nothing - pornographic or shameful in nudity in and of itself, even in nudity that is depicted through the written word or visually. Conflating the two causes deep, destructive, nearly innumerable issues. We need to stop doing so. Full stop.

2) Repeat the last paragraph, inserting "sex" and "sexual activity" for "nudity". (Seriously, re-read the paragraph that way, please, before continuing.) Even visual images of fully nude sexual activity are not automatically pornographic. It is critical to understand that fundamental concept in order to deal with true pornography in a constructive way and stop perpetuating incorrect and debilitating misunderstanding among us.

3) One of the reasons I have not shared my own experiences more often and in greater detail is the culture of shame in which I was raised. When I realized as a teenager that I was acting, in practical terms, like an addict (creating isolation in order to read the books, hiding my actions from everyone else, acting on a compulsion, etc.), shame was the primary reason I kept it a secret - and that shame robbed me of the only chance I had to get the support and help I needed to stop reading them. I questioned my morality, my self-control, my righteousness, my very nature - specifically because what I was doing was described as an ultimate evil - not the natural curiosity and hormonal reaction it actually was. 

4) We need to stop demonizing people who are struggling with occasional (or even regular) engagement with pornography.We can demonize the industry and what it produces, and rightly so, without condemning those who are exposed to it and even engage with it. Simply allowing them to admit engagement, especially early in the process, without any form of discipline or punishment, would go a long way toward eliminating the binding shame that too often accompanies even simple exposure. 

(I need to add a specific note at this point: I am not talking here about users who then act on what they see with people in their lives. I also am not talking about all categories of pornography. There is a proper place for formal discipline and punishment relative to the use of pornography, but we tend to make that place far too broad and inclusive than it should be.)

5) We need to focus on the practical reasons why pornography is so evil as much as the spiritual dangers - and we need to discuss those reasons openly and without shame. We need to be open about how natural it is to be stimulated by nudity, sex, and pornography - and the differences between them. We need to stress that sexual arousal is not a sin. To emphasize that point, we need to stress that sexual arousal is not a sin. We need to incorporate real sex education into our practices, at the very least by supporting it in our schools. Just like educating people about the practical and physical health dangers of smoking and drinking is more effective for many people than focusing on addiction as a spiritual loss of agency, educating people about the evils of the pornography industry itself can provide a powerful motivation to discuss usage openly and constructively - as long as we balance such discussions with a rejection of the personal shaming that has been such a core part of our culture for so long. 

I no longer am ashamed of my reading that summer, since I now understand much better the physiological foundation of why I continued to read those books, but I reflect on my experiences throughout my life and wish someone had talked and would talk now more openly and scientifically about pornography and its allure - and also about the damage it does in practical terms, not just in spiritual terms. I wish the dialogue surrounding pornography had not been so extreme and condemning of the people who read (and viewed) pornographic materials, even as I believe the industry itself is one of the best examples in our world of the evil that exists in the hearts of conspiring humans. It dehumanizes people, both men and women; it degrades people, both men and women; it drives much of the sex slave industry that is vile and depraved to an extent that is beyond my ability to express. 

Ironically, the way we approach pornography actually inhibits our ability to fight the industry that produces it, since that approach drives its use among us underground - which deepens the debilitating shame (and fear of punishment and communal rejection) that keeps it underground - which silences productive discussions about it - which aids and abets its continued production and use. 

Compassion and real charity toward people is the key. We simply have to separate in our rhetoric and in our hearts the consumer from the producer, particularly the good people who are so different from the evil people who are striving to enslave them.  We need a loving understanding of that Stake President so many years ago who unwittingly introduced me to pornography, not a culture of judgmentalism, punishment, shame, and scorn. 

Currently, we are adding chains to their lives, instead of helping to free them. Shame on us. 

I Am Blessed

I have six months to get used to the idea of being married to a grandmother.

Life is good.

What Do You Love about Mormonism?

I have been asked the title question often, and the following are the first few things that jump to mind. I would love to get personal input about how anyone who reads this post would answer the question.

1) The core, base, foundational theology: "I am a child of God" is powerful and meaningful to me - because of the eternal growth / progression it teaches. "Becoming" is important to me - far more than traditional, verbal praising. I also LOVE that I can see the theology as far more universalist than many members believe.

2) The focus on strengthening families - even with the corresponding issues that focus can cause. I would like that focus to be expanded to focus on all families, regardless of their composition, but I like the focus.

3) The complexity: I love the fact that I have to think actively in order to build my own faith, but I'm wired that way. Conversely, I like the fact that so many others don't have to struggle actively to find a faith that resonates for them.

4) Generally speaking, the people: Mormons tend to be good, sincere people, and I like being around and with most of them.

5) The Church's welfare system: This one is personal to me, since I have been unemployed and helped more than once in my life.

There is more, but these are the ones that hit me first.

How the Book of Mormon Works for and Speaks to Me

I find it fascinating to see how the Book of Mormon was used in the early days of the Church - and it is interesting that it was used exactly like a friend once said he saw it "work" on his mission. ("So when people read the Book of Mormon for the first time (those that didn't reject it outright because it was outside of the Bible), it did kind of open the door to additional scripture, personal revelation, and the rest of the gospel.")

I love the Book of Mormon for a number of reasons, but I've never had a burning in the bosom feeling about it. I've prayer for that type of experience, back when I was younger and didn't realize that's now how God speaks to me, personally.  I just love what it teaches and the feeling of attachment I have to it. I also am intrigued by what some key passages say about its purpose - and those passages don't say what we emphasize so much right now in the Church.

1) It was written to help people believe the Bible. That is stated directly as the primary purpose in Mormon 7 - especially verses 8-9. In other words, it is a second witness - not a first witness - and it was used in the early church to help them understand and believe the Bible better and more fully, not as the primary witness of Jesus or the central scriptural canon of our theology that tends to be our focus now. (It's interesting to note that nearly all of our truly unique doctrines are from the Bible, not the Book of Mormon.)

2) It was written to help people accept that God will be merciful to them personally - by remembering His mercy throughout history to others. This is the central message of Moroni 10:3-5 - and we tend to cut the heart out of that passage when we breeze past verse 3 in order to get to verses 4-5. We literally change Moroni's admonition when we make it nothing more than, "Pray about the Book of Mormon and ask if it is true." That's not what the passage actually asks people to do - at least, not everything it asks them to do.

That's how I see the Book of Mormon, and it works for me - even though, again, I've never had a distinctly powerful manifestation of it being a factual, historical record (even as I accept it as such as my default view but am fine with it being inspired fiction, if you will).  My connection is intellectual (really studying slowly and carefully what is written in it), emotional (many of the stories and how I feel while reading it), observational (seeing the effect it has had on others), spiritual (the insights and theological framework it has given me), etc.

Participating in the Mundane Enough to Experience the Miraculous

Two years ago, the Sunday School manual focused on the teachings of Pres. Lorenzo Snow.  In one of the lessons, an experience was shared about Pres. Snow raising a child from the dead.  In a subsequent conversation about that story,  someone asked what our expectations of our leaders and ourselves ought to be with regard to the miraculous.

I have participated in hundreds of blessings over the course of my years in the Church. Most have been nice but forgettable; a few have been somewhat revelatory; a handful have been . . . powerfully connective to the divine.

My expectation of leaders and myself boils down to a willingness to put ourselves in enough situations where the revelatory and powerfully connective might happen, even though my experiences teach me that most of the time it will be nice but forgettable - that we will be there when God needs to reach down in a miraculous fashion and, figuratively, show us his hand.

My takeaway from the lesson is that Pres. Snow did that – participated enough in the mundane that he was there for the miraculous.

A Few Things "I am" Relative to the LDS Church

I am the controlling agent in my relationship with the LDS Church, so I am able to get the good out of it without being subject to the cultural bad (or most of it).

I am an "agent unto myself", as the Book of Mormon says I am supposed to be.

I act and don't allow myself (usually) to be acted upon.

I am the subject in the relationship, not the object.

I don't belong to the Church; it belongs to me; it is mine.

I am Mormon to the core - but the primary focus is on "I am" not "Mormon". 

I am interested in hearing others' input into what they are in this regard. 

Jesus' Private, Intimate, Romantic and/or Sexual Life - and a Tribute to the Woman I Love

My 28th anniversary is today, so I have been thinking a lot the last few days about my marriage and how grateful I am that I met my wife 32 1/2 years ago - and the life we have shared since then.

I linked previously to a post by Jacob on By Common Consent entitled "Men, Sex and Modesty".  I came across an exchange I had in that thread with another commenter and felt like I should copy it as a separate post.  

The other person said:

“To the best of our knowledge, Christ loved women in a non-romantic way. He wasn’t dating them, trying to get their attention, wooing them, courting them, much less marrying and eventually having sex with them.”

I responded: 

We have nothing (absolutely nothing) to tell us one way or the other whether the assumption above is correct or not. Given our actual historical record, “to the best of our knowledge” can mean that Jesus did every single one of those things – and every argument I have heard that claims he did none of them is based on prior assumptions and not grounded in historical reality. Sure, he might have been celibate and lacked natural attractions – but that would deny an important part of how we view and talk about the Atonement, in my opinion.

Thus, I reject it and the argument flowing from it. 

The other person then accused me of being snarky, to which I replied (edited to combine three comments into one comprehensive comment): 

My response contains no snark whatsoever. None.

I reject the statement I quoted simply because it is based on an assumption that is not supported in the scriptural accounts we have. There literally is no way to say one way or the other, or anywhere in between, what Jesus thought, felt and did in regard to those things (how he loved women [romantically and/or non-romantically] and how he felt about “dating women, trying to get their attention, wooing them, courting them, much less marrying and eventually having sex with them"), since there is no context given of his life prior to his ministry. In fact, without the reference to Peter’s mother-in-law being sick, we would have nothing whatsoever about the intimate, private, romantic and sexual lives of any of Jesus’ closest disciples. We simply don’t know, and we ought to admit that rather than claiming we do to some degree.

In other words, there is no “to the best of our knowledge,” since there is no knowledge at all about those specific things. Lack of knowledge does not equal knowledge of anything except its lack – so there is nothing that can be extrapolated knowledgeably about things for which we have no detail.

Thus, “to the best of our knowledge” is useless when talking about how Jesus approached women romantically or sexually. The best of our knowledge in that field is the same as the worst of our knowledge – non-existent.

I personally believe Jesus was married and that he had a romantic, intimate and sexual life that he "laid down for his friends" when he became a minister and went on a mission, so to speak.  I might be wrong about that, since there simply is no way to know for certain, but I believe he experienced all we experience, in some way, and I believe that means he experienced our greatest joys as well as our greatest sorrows and sins.

Looking back on the last 32 years of my life, since I met my wife, and the last 28 years, since we were married, I choose to believe he experienced my greatest joy - that of being married to a woman whom I love with all my heart and soul.  I don't believe his life could be "perfect" (complete, whole, fully developed) without that experience. 

28 Years Ago Tomorrow

Tomorrow is my 28th anniversary.  The following is not original but rather an adaptation of something I heard a long time ago: 

When my wife and I got married, we agreed that I would make all the important decisions and she would make all the unimportant ones - since she already had made the most important decision in my life by agreeing to marry me.

28 years later, can you believe there hasn't been a single important decision since then? 

In Some Ways, I Prefer Our Modern Prophets to Joseph Smith - Even As I Love Joseph

I really do believe that Joseph was a prophet who received revelation from God - and I really do believe he was sincere in believing he was a prophet who received revelation from God. However, I also believe he would be diagnosed and medicated if he lived now - that he wouldn't be accepted in our own day and age as a prophet specifically because we categorize what allowed him to see visions and hear voices as disabilities.

I know that view puts me on the precipice of a very high cliff, since there is a fine line between being able to tap into something extraordinary and wonderful and being off-one's-rocker, certifiably nuts. I understand that, but we strive so hard to eliminate the extremes now that we end up with widespread mediocrity. Yes, we're eliminating the negative extremes, but we also are eliminating the positive extremes - often within the same person.

In saying that, I'm not saying we shouldn't be trying to eliminate the negative extremes. I don't want my mom (and everyone around her) to have to deal with the negative extremes of her schizophrenia. I don't want her to have horrible, vicious hallucinations. I want her to be able to have the benefits of her medication in order to be the spiritual person I knew growing up, even if those medications blunt some of the natural spiritual insights that are the flip-side of her "disability".

I don't see Joseph Smith as schizophrenic - but I do believe he probably had some condition we would diagnose clinically and try to eliminate now. In many ways, that's too bad on an individual basis - but, in other ways, it's good on a group, communal basis. It creates mich more communal, institutional stability - as it stifles the type of individual, personal "out-there-ness" that is the root cause of almost all radical revolution. Make no mistake about it: Joseph Smith was a radical revolutionary in the truest sense of that term. Radical revolutionaries simply must be borderline nuts to have the visions they have, and, given our rejection of radical revolution, we now have stable, inspired guides instead.

All in all, I'll take that - since I don't know how I personally would deal with the incredible chaos, messiness and suffering inherent in radical revolution.

Simply Put, I Just Don't Like Protestantism's View of Eternity

For the record, the traditional Protestant view of immortality just doesn't do it for me. I really do think I'd rather stop existing than to sit around forever telling someone how great they are, while stagnating eternally, just to avoid roasting in a lake of fire and brimstone (which, for what it's worth, is how we describe Lucifer's plan, in a nutshell).

For me, the difference in how Mormonism envisions eternity and how eternity is described in so many other denominations is the single, biggest difference imaginable. I want to believe in the Mormon vision; I have no desire whatsoever to believe the other view. To me, Protestant Heaven is a perfect description of damnation - and, frankly, the view held by too many Mormons that the Celestial Kingdom will be a place for people who, essentially, are copies of each other is one more way I would describe Hell.

I like the laboratory view - even though I don't like studying science all that much, comparatively. I'll be one of the gods reading jokes to everyone and playing a musical instrument to lessen the stress as they work out the physical creation stuff - one of the ones who breaks up potential fights when things get tense and someone is tempted to blow up someone else's experiment.

That's who I am now, and that's who I want to be then. I like who I have become over the decades learning how to be authentically me.

Some Non-Traditional Reasons I Am at Peace

I make goals - but am willing to change or scrap them if life gives me different outcomes.

I have no expectations of myself and others - except effort, and even that can't be judged perfectly.

I don't seek anything from the Church except a place for me to gather, commune and help others grow. Everything else is gravy - and the primary responsibility for everything rests with me.

I try to live my life with a clear recognition that "I am" - so I deal with "this is" and trust life/God to lead me to what will be. An important part of "what is" for me occurs as a result of my church membership, and a huge part of who I am is a result of the paradigm I learned growing up in the LDS Church - but, as I've said more than once, I have been an oddball since as long as I can remember, so not fitting in totally and not being like everyone else isn't an issue for me. I am who I am, and I can testify of how liberating and empowering that is. I am not defined by others, including not being defined by opposition to others.

I simply am, and, for that reason, I am at peace.

Describing How I See Things

I have been asked a number of times over the years how I have come to see things the way I see things.  That is true especially of people who have known me for some time and had a chance to see how impossible it is to stereotype my religious views adequately and, in some cases, know how I think about some topics - since I am all over the place on the conservative-liberal spectrum when it comes to lots of random, individual topics.

The shortest response I've been able to construct to describe how my brain operates is that I am a "thinker tinkerer".

My father and brothers are excellent mechanics - and one of my brothers loves working on computers. I have no desire to do any of that. I take things apart mentally and reconstruct them in my mind. That's just who I am. 

A Deeply Personal Post about Stillborn Children and Differing Beliefs

(NOTE: I don't share the following very often, especially publicly, but . . . I will try to do so now, hoping what I type doesn't hurt anyone in any way but helps someone, somehow, and is inspired in that way.)

My mother was a very good secretary before her marriage to my father. She was one of the youngest Church Headquarters secretaries in the history of the church at that time - during Pres. McKay's presidency. (I have no idea if that still is the case, but it wouldn't surprise me.) She has a personalized letter of appreciation signed by the First Presidency given to her when she got married and stopped working. (totally her choice, not policy in any way)

She really wanted to have children and stay home with them, but her first three pregnancies ended in miscarriages. Her fourth went full-term, and she gave birth naturally to a stillborn girl.  My parents had no idea; the stillbirth came as a complete shock. Obviously, they were crushed.

I've written here previously about my parents' decisions after those four pregnancies and how they almost gave up and adopted instead, and I've written a post here in tribute to my father and the choice he eventually had to make for her sake. What I want to share now, however, has nothing to do with those subsequent decisions.

My parents understood that the Church's official position with regard to stillborn children is, "We don't know." It was intensely painful for them, but they (and I) understand that position. It is the best position to take, in my opinion - since anything else would open up all kinds of other issues that are best left closed. My parents knew the official position - and, since it is, "We don't know," they were free to believe they have nine children instead of the eight whom they raised. That was very important to them. It meant and means the world to them.

For me, however, it's strictly academic - since it all happened before I was born. Honestly, I struggle even to type her name or write "my sister". Since it's academic for me, and since that gives me the detachment to think about all the implications of different views, I have a hard time intellectually believing what my parents believe. It's hard for me to type this paragraph in a way in which I am comfortable, as it raises all kinds of emotions, not the least of which is a degree of consternation and even pain that I don't feel more strongly about it. It hurts my heart a little to know that, to me, I have five sisters (not six) and two brothers - and, to me, it's different than if it was a case of an older sibling dying some time after birth.

In that way, I am very different than my parents - and I wouldn't dream of saying that to them or challenging their view in any way. I'm not sure they would understand, and I think they might be hurt greatly. It is my own reality, however - and so I think I understand both views, at least to the extent possible for someone who hasn't experienced it personally.

I honestly am not sure why I felt like sharing that in this post today. This has been the most difficult post to write since I started this blog - since I really struggle to find the "right" words, both for others and myself. In the end, I simply am thankful that the "official position" of the Church allows me to feel differently about such a personal, emotional topic than my own parents do without any "doctrinal" guilt for either of us.

That means a lot to me, actually - and I don't think I've ever thought about it quite in that way previously.

To a Friend: Why I Choose to Be a Mormon

A friend asked me recently a few questions about my membership in the LDS Church.  They were thoughtful, sincere questions, and I thought I would share some of them here, along with my initial responses to them.  There are more reasons why I choose to be Mormon than are listed in this post (many more), but this is what I shared with my friend.  

Just a few, immediate responses:

1. What benefits does your Church provide that can't be provided by other temporal humanitarian or educational institutions?

a) An over-arching, empowering, transcendent theology that is radically different than anything else in Christianity. I've studied just about every other religion in existence (at the very least the large ones, including Christian denominations).  It's similar to the overall end-view of Buddhism, but it also provides a Brother-Savior and a Father-God framework that is MUCH more powerful for me than the more amorphous presentation within Buddhism. I could list many, many aspects of that theology, but it is the theological grandeur, in totality, that captivates and "benefits" me the most.

b) Theoretical balance and abundant paradox. Complexity that is baffling and unsettling to many, but which I value highly.

2. After a person has gained commitment to principles of honesty, charity, clean living, and overall goodness, what benefits does your Church provide? Are they significant enough given the high financial and emotional costs of being exposed to the long checklists of things you must do that you can never accomplish without destroying balance in your life?

Gaining those things is a foundational benefit that causes someone to "become" those things - and people who have become those things find a way to mitigate the general demands and find a balance that works for them, even if that balance is different than others' balance. Yes, the benefits are significant enough - IF a workable balance is found.  I have found such a balance for myself. 

3. What value do you see in participating?

Great, lasting, immeasurable value - as long as that participation is meaningful to me.

I know myself well enough to know that I need structure and general stability in order for my kite to fly without getting unhooked and burning up in the heat of the sun. I could jump off the theoretical / theological deep-end if left to myself.  I need my personal, pondering kite to fly (since I need to contemplate the cosmos, so to speak), but I also need the string that keeps it safely tethered - and my wife and kids and the LDS Church provide the tether to my kite.

Finally, I find GREAT value in trying to help others learn to fly - and I would feel extremely . . . ungrateful . . . if I didn't make that effort within the community that gave me wings.

I See How I Need to See, and Others See How They Need to See

I have known I was heterodox since I was very young.  I read the Book of Mormon for the first time completely on my own when I was seven - and I remember clearly thinking:

"This doesn't say what people at church think it says." 

I knew I loved and admired and respected those people (that, by and large, they were really good people), but I also knew that, in my mind, according to how I interpreted what I read, they were wrong about many things they believed regarding what the Book of Mormon actually said.  Ironically, perhaps, it was the very things about which I disagreed with others that were (and still are) some of the strongest aspects of my testimony - why I absolutely LOVE that book. 

Fast forward 40 years:

I've had similar experiences on a regular basis about various other things in the Church.  I am about as orthoprax as it gets (meaning I live an absolutely stereotypical Mormon life), but I still am heterodox in many ways.  I love the Gospel of Jesus Christ, as I understand it; I love "pure Mormonism", as I understand it, and still am blown away regularly by its cosmic grandeur; I love the LDS Church, even as I disagree with various things here and there; I am frustrated by some aspects of the culture, but I love the people who create those frustrating aspects. 

In a very important way, I'm still that seven-year-old boy who realized that I just see things differently than almost everyone around me.  The difference is that I now accept that the relative darkness of the glass through which I see is different than the relative darkness of the glass(es) through which others see.  I no longer think I'm right and they are wrong; rather, I understand that I see how I need to see and they see how they need to see.  I have peace; they have peace.  I now am able to be happy for their peace, even as I am not happy always about what gives them peace. 

That has been a true liberation for me.

In My Heart and In My Mind: The Analogy of the Kite

This post was inspired by two other posts by people I admire greatly.  If you want to read them before reading this post, please do so:

"Reining in the Analyst" - jmb275 (Wheat & Tares) - [I linked to this post last year as one of my weekly highlighted posts.]

"Unrelated (but still really great) Thoughts" - Clean Cut [Clean Cut (with a Coke)]

I first realized I thought differently than most other members of the Church when I was about 7 years old - the first time I read the Book of Mormon and thought:

"Wait.  That doesn't say what people at church think it says."  

(As a simple yet important example, I probably was about 10-12 years old when I first realized that the Lamanites must have joined a large, indigenous, darker-skinned population, much like the Nephites did with the Mulekites - since that was the only thing that made sense to me when I read that the Lamanites still outnumbered the Nephites greatly, even after their combining with the Mulekites - and since it explains the Nephite statements about skin color so well.)

In that way, I have had the "luxury / blessing" of starting very early and naturally to learn that it's OK to be different - and I now have had over 40 years of practice at letting my mind (my analyst) roam free for most of the time I live and reining in my mind (my analyst) at times at church.  I live very comfortably in both worlds at this point - the settlement and the wilderness, so to speak. 

The best description I've ever heard is that of a kite:

My mind flies all over the place, flitting around looking at lots of things and thrilling in the ride - but my heart is grounded firmly by the string that connects me to my community, my family, my church, my "foundation".  Without the kite of my mind, my heart might break - but without the string of my heart, my mind might fly off into the sun and burn. 

In other words, I have "studied" things out in my heart AND my mind - and "reining in the analyst" helps keep the kite of my mind from causing too much tension and breaking free of the string of my heart.

"Truth Is Reason" - We All Rationalize Some Things in the Eyes of Others

To "rationalize" means to make something "rational" - and, at the most practical level, "rational" means nothing more than "understandable (and acceptable) to the mind". What is completely rational to one person can be completely irrational to someone else - like those who call something "mental gymnastics" that is totally understandable and acceptable to the mind of person who believes it.

We all rationalize, generally to the same extent. We just reach different conclusions than others do - and, because we can't understand and accept others' decisions, we label others' decisions negatively as "rationalizations" while not doing so to our own. (Those who are more intellectual in nature tend to love the word "rational" but not the word "rationalize" - which is deliciously ironic to me.) We also tend to make this criticism about conclusions that are the most removed from our own - which is why prophets / visionaries / charismatics / etc. tend to be loved or hated, accepted or rejected, praised or reviled and have very few indifferent reactions. They usually inspire intense admiration or just as intense revulsion - and that is both good and bad.

I personally am wherever I am on each and every issue and topic, which has caused some people to complain that I am wishy-washy or too hard to characterize. They want me to be consistently on the same side of a line on everything, and I simply am not that way. I attempt to find a view that is rational to me in each and every case - which means I am conservative, moderate and liberal depending on the specific issue. If there is a consistent standard I try to recognize, it is the line between charity and judgmentalism - but even that isn't always a bright line, since, ultimately, it is based on my own reasoning and rationalization.